Decoding the Polls, The Winds of Recession & The Price Paid to Russia Top 3 Takeaways – August 2nd, 2024
- Decoding the polls. If you’re a poll watcher of sorts, not as in the actual polls where votes are cast and counted, but rather the daily flow of political polling that steadily flows when we’re closing in on only being three months away from Election Day...you’ve noticed something. The presidential race appears to have suddenly flipped. On the surface it would appear we’ve gone from Donald Trump having had a growing and comfortable advantage against Joe Biden two weeks ago, to a smaller but steady lead against Kamala Harris a week ago, to what’s now appearing to be Harris steadily pulling ahead of Trump in polls. But what’s changed, other than the candidate at the top of the ticket for Democrats, may not necessarily be a significant sentiment shift but rather the samples in the polls themselves. Earlier this week in my story Voter ID Trends Favor Republicans I brought you this... Gallup's monthly party ID results are in and they’re noteworthy as we head down the homestretch of the 2024 election cycle. Republicans currently are nine points better off in party ID than in either of the previous two presidential election cycles (with Republicans showing a 6-point advantage over Democrats overall). Credible national polling samples should now include six percent more Republicans being surveyed than Democrats (or weighted accordingly). So as polls have suddenly shifted sharply what are we seeing with the samples within them... Take yesterday’s Daily Kos/Civiqs poll which now shows Harris up 4-points nationally. What was the partisan split of the voters they sampled? D+5, a far cry from a sample that should be weighted towards the right. How about the latest Economist/YouGov poll that showed Harris up 2? Well, that sample was conveniently D+2. And it doesn’t stop with those two polls either. In other words, the national polls that have been showing Kamala on a roll aren’t even close to being credibly sampled or weighted. Now, as I mentioned on Tuesday in my sampling story... The caveats are these. This sampling was taken prior to the impact of the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, his selection of JD Vance as his running mate and Kamala Harris becoming the presumptive Democrat nominee following President Biden’s exit from the race. Those events may not inherently have an impact on how one identifies politically, though they could. Nevertheless, the political landscape for Republicans appears to be the most favorable it’s been in the twenty-year history of Gallup’s monthly surveying. You tell me. Have ten percent or more of Americans identifying with Republicans prior to Kamala Harris ascending to the top of the Democrat’s ticket suddenly flipped and become Democrats because she’s at the top of the ticket? If the answer is no, all of these recent polls aren’t credible. And if in fact Republicans still hold even a slight edge in party ID, Trump would still be showing a nice lead in the polls that are now showing Harris on top.
- The winds of recession are coming in hard. Those aren’t my words, but those were the words of Wall Street economist Chris Rupkey yesterday after weighing a slate of economic news that didn’t bring any good news along with it. Jobless claims came in hot and were the highest in a year but the biggest data point that dropped was the ISM manufacturing report which proved to be a data bomb. The index, which measures manufacturing activity, came in with a read of 46.8, which is a recessionary number. How recessionary? The last time we had a monthly read this low, it was because of COVID lockdowns. The last time we weren’t in a pandemic and had a monthly manufacturing number this low, you’d have to go back to the Great Recession. It’s been nearly 15 years since we had a manufacturing number this low. That’s what threw a wrench in the financial markets yesterday and that’s on the minds of many as they are waiting for the monthly jobs report today. Wednesday’s ADP Report showed job growth coming in especially slow with just 122,000 jobs added during the month. Most notably, that included a net loss of 7,000 jobs in smaller businesses last month. Small businesses are also leading indicators of recessions. When the cash register doesn’t ring small businesses can’t afford to keep employees around for as long as larger employers. The monthly government jobs report is always especially economically important, it’s now taken on an added sense of importance. Many economists have called for recessions over the past two years that haven’t materialized. Maybe this time will be more of the same...but what isn’t the same is the economic data. It’s suddenly weak, and in the case of manufacturing – historically weak. If the winds of recession are coming in hard, we’ll have a better idea of how hard at 8:30.
- The price that was paid. When your favorite sports team makes a big trade and lands a big name what’s the first question you want to know the answer to? What was the price that was paid. That’s how we determine for ourselves whether it may end up being a good trade. And in the end, it’s how all trades in all sports are eventually judged. Yesterday we learned that Russia had made the biggest trade with the United States with the Cold War. Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and green card holder Vladimir Kara-Murza have been freed from Russia. Ok, that’s great. But does that mean it was a great trade? Here’s the rest of the story that wasn’t widely reported. A hit man who worked directly for Vladimir Putin. A cyber fraud scam artist responsible for stealing and funneling back to Russia $169 million from Americans. A Russian intelligence operative who had been stealing US military equipment bound for Ukraine to use for Russia in the war against Ukraine. A sophisticated hacker who stole and funneled $92 million away from American businesses. Four Russian spies who funneled supplies and resources to Russian sleeper agents throughout NATO countries. Is the hitman done with carrying out hits? Are the Russian scam artists done stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Americans that are sent back to aid the Russian government? Are the Russian spies done spying? Because the answers to those questions are whether this turns out to be a good trade given the extremely high price that was paid.